WNBA: Storm trying unusually torpid on protection since Olympic break

The Seattle Storm (17-10) are again in motion after a month-long break within the 2024 WNBA season, however not a lot has gone their approach since they’ve returned to the court docket. The Storm blew a 14-point lead to the Atlanta Dream final Friday, in the end dropping on a last-second shot by Tina Charles. Two days later, they gave up a large fourth quarter to the Indiana Fever in what ended up being a lopsided loss.

It’s simply the third time this season Seattle has misplaced a number of video games in a row. Each losses had been lowlighted by second-half collapses and an uncharacteristic lack of depth on protection; each Atlanta and Indiana scored over 50 second-half factors in opposition to a sometimes stout Storm protection, one thing that Seattle head coach Noelle Quinn was fast to name out as unacceptable.

Photograph by Adam Hagy/NBAE through Getty Pictures

“We had been on the street enjoying in opposition to a staff that was very hungry,” Quinn instructed media after her staff’s heartbreaking loss in Atlanta. “We are able to’t permit ourselves to not be locked in on the defensive facet of the basketball.”

Whereas Seattle’s poor defensive effort was most noticeable when its opponents had been hitting 3-point pictures—Quinn bemoaned an absence of physicality and overeager assist protection in opposition to Indiana after the Fever hit 15 pictures from lengthy vary—the Storm did themselves no favor on the boards, both. Seattle was outrebounded 37-27 by Atlanta and 43-32 by Indiana, and whereas it hasn’t essentially been a weak point for the Storm in 2024, they now rank within the backside third of the WNBA in defensive rebounding proportion.

Maybe most disappointingly is how the current offensive efforts of the Storm’s beginning guards had been overshadowed by the staff’s defensive deficiencies. Skylar Diggins-Smith and Jewell Loyd—who, whereas each undeniably proficient gamers, have at occasions struggled to play at their greatest concurrently mixed to attain 50 factors in opposition to the Dream. It was simply the third time this season Diggins-Smith and Loyd scored a minimum of 20 factors apiece in the identical sport.

For a lot of the season, Seattle has been capable of lean on its protection as its prime offensive gamers have realized to play with each other, hoping that chemistry can be constructed as time went on and that the staff can be firing on all cylinders when the video games mattered most. Because the Storm begin their post-Olympic break schedule lethargically, nonetheless, the alternative has occurred, with their normally dependable protection faltering as their dynamic scorers attempt their greatest to maintain them in video games. There’s nonetheless loads of basketball remaining within the 2024 common season, however with the Storm now in fifth place within the standings, they’ll must reestablish their momentum shortly in the event that they’re going to enter the postseason on a excessive notice.